Magic is the GOAT in my book. Mike may have been the more dominant individual player. But Magic is a great individual player in his own right and I think is more important to a team

We share the similar view here I believe that itís a toss up between MJ and Magic. Like you said MJ may have been the more dominant individual player But Magic is a great individual player in his own right and I think is more important to a team. That can be proven when watching Magic put the team on his shoulders as a rookie and led them to a championship playing all 5 positions on the floor (thatís unheard of) The one thing I always wonder is would Magic have passed MJ in rings if he didnít have to retire early due to AIDS. Donít get me wrong I love MJ he was amazing 1 in a million but I think to say he was outright the best ever is going a bit far when there have been players like Russell, Wilt, West, Magic all amazing players.

Originally Posted by Selenium
Not really. He's more of the exception to the rule, more than anything.

The rule is such bullsh*t that there's no exception needed.

There have been plenty of great teams with no great big men, who have made it to the finals and come relatively close (No, Im not counting the debacle that is the 2007 Cavaliers). The early 90s Blazers, the 91 Lakers not to mention the Pistons who won the damn thing. You can even argue that the current Pistons are led by the consistency of their perimeter guys and Sheed is a role player (which is true whether the

Thing is all championship teams have great balance on the perimeter and interior. It is certainly EASIER to find the good guards to support the great bigs than it is to find the good interior players like a Horace Grant, Sheed, a guy like Rik Smits even combined with GREAT perimeter talent could've been enough to win a title.

Point is all these "necessary" bigs that led teams to titles had great perimeter player whether in the form of a great perimeter player or a group of very good fringe allstar perimeter guys. Just like the perimeter led ones had good big men.

Both the interior and perimeter have to be strong. Just like great teams need good outside shooting to spread the floor and good defense.

There have been plenty of great teams with no great big men, who have made it to the finals and come relatively close (No, Im not counting the debacle that is the 2007 Cavaliers). The early 90s Blazers, the 91 Lakers not to mention the Pistons who won the damn thing. You can even argue that the current Pistons are led by the consistency of their perimeter guys and Sheed is a role player (which is true whether the

Thing is all championship teams have great balance on the perimeter and interior. It is certainly EASIER to find the good guards to support the great bigs than it is to find the good interior players like a Horace Grant, Sheed, a guy like Rik Smits even combined with GREAT perimeter talent could've been enough to win a title.

Point is all these "necessary" bigs that led teams to titles had great perimeter player whether in the form of a great perimeter player or a group of very good fringe allstar perimeter guys. Just like the perimeter led ones had good big men.

Both the interior and perimeter have to be strong. Just like great teams need good outside shooting to spread the floor and good defense.

There was only one other team in history based on the "dominant star" model which won a championship, and that was Rick Barry's Warriors. They won once. The only other teams who won rings without a dominant big man (the Bad Boy Pistons and the '04 Pistons) are based on the "many stars" model, even though Isiah was clearly the best player on that team. They had 6 guys between 14-18.5 ppg -- that's balance. And the Bad Boys were getting 14/10 from Laimbeer anyway, which is about double what the Bulls got from Cartwright/Longley.

The '04 Pistons featured dominant defensive and rebounding big men and were clearly based on the "sum of many parts" model. And even the Blazers team that reached the Finals in '90 was loaded, despite Clyde being the best player: they had 3 players averaging 20+ ppg in the postseason (Drexler, Porter, and Kersey), and another two at 13+ ppg (Williams, Duckworth). And again, despite you using them as an example of a team without a dominant big, even their center (Duckworth) was nearly tripling Cartwright's ppg output during the first three-peat.